Running Girl is a book by Simon Mason about a teenage boy named Garvie Smith, who, despite having the highest IQ ever recorded at his school, is lazy, wags, drinks alcohol, smokes and has terrible grades. He is often just daydreaming and lying on his bed, until the body of his ex-girlfriend, Chloe Dow is pulled out of a pond nearby and he is instantly woken.
Despite there already being an Detective Inspector on the case, Garvie starts investigating for himself. He does a lot of sleuthing, disguising, rule breaking, interrupting with official business, and takes many dangerous risks to find out that Chloe was being bothered by many people, and that she hadn't been the innocent beautiful girl the media was portraying her as. But as Garvie gets more and more involved, things get more and more risky and dangerous.
I found this book very engaging and enjoyable. The way it was written was easy to read, and there were many twists and turns in the plot where I thought that was the end of it but it turned out it wasn't. I liked how Garvie was not school-smart but was extremely intelligent in a whole other way. This book wasn't just a typical murder mystery, it had a unique plot based not around the life of an adult, but a teen, in a more modern setting. It showed the different lives of different teens who had grown up in different ways, which was one of the main things that made it interesting for me.
I would recommend this book to high school and intermediate students, not primary school students, because it involves a lot of smoking, violence and gambling, as well as ideas that younger readers might find harder to understand. Also it would be more relatable to teens than it would be to 5-11 year olds or adults.
Popular Posts
Short Stories: WHERE IS DANIEL?
The time was an early morning in the winter of 1941. Falling snow packed onto the hard labourers of Gulag 10 WLA as they begin setting off into the mines and factories somewhere in the far east. Malnourished, mistreated and muddy, the inhabitors of this typical Gulag were kept under strict control of General Victor, who gave harsh punishments to any prisoner who dared riot or worse, insult the government. It was a normal evening. The prisoners were escorted back to the Gulag through the freezing taiga by cattle carriages. They waited in line for their daily rations: Rubbery potatoes, dried bread and lime water. If one behaved well and boasted high production, he/she would sometimes be rewarded with a small knob of fresh corn, a snack the guards would gladly feast on. General Victor was feasting on a large chicken when Archie, or formally, Guard Number One burst into his room reporting misbehaviour between two prisoners. Ben (Guard Number Two) and Mile...
A LITERARY CRITIQUE OF THE WHALE RIDER, BY WITI IHIMAERA
Witi Ihimaera, The Whale Rider —International Edition (Reed Publishing, 2003), pp. 154. Ihimaera is arguably the most influential Maori author in existence, publishing the first collection of short stories by a Maori writer called Pounamu Pounamu in 1972. The following year, he followed suit by being the first Maori to author a novel— Tangi. However, his magnum opus is indubitably his 1987 The Whale Rider. Fifteen years later the film adaption was released, with the eminent Niki Caro as the supervising director and Keisha Castle-Hughe's entrancing performance as the protagonist. As one commentator accurately observed, "A film so specific to one area, and grounded so firmly in New Zealand and Maori culture, has enthralled audiences from different countries partly because of the universal theme of heroic triumph over adversity, but mainly because of Castle-Hughes' and [Rawiri] Paratene's stunningly natural and utterly convincin...
Air Born- J.L Pawley
In the first book of the Generation Icarus series, Air Born by J.l Pawley, we are introduced to the main characters, Tyler, Miguel, Victoria, H, Tui, Marcus and Raven who all are 17 and have just gone through their 'wing birth', a process in which they grow wings. The seven of them are searching about their heritage, how did they grow wings, why did they grow wings and who gave them this unique mutation. They are also trying to avoid two groups, one called the Evolutionary Corparation who wants to kill them for scientific purposes and the Angelists, who think the seven are angels. I really like this book beacuse it has a creative plot, which is quite similar to the Maximum Ride series, another series I enjoyed, in which several children grow wings in a lab and try to not get killed, after escaping the lab. This book was very funy, quirky with lots of action and I would absoutely recommend this.
Comments
Post a Comment